Planned Parenthood Charges Dropped as Sebelius Destroyed Records

A Kansas judge ordered dropped some of the 107 charges filed against Planned Parenthood for engaging in illegal abortions and covering up those cases thanks to the destruction of records that took place during the Sebelius administration.

The case with 107 charges against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri came about when former state attorney general Phill Kline brought the charges after obtaining evidence in patient records showing Planned Parenthood committed illegal late-term abortions and then manufactured documents to cover up their crimes. The charges allege the abortion business potentially engaged in illegal abortions and violated state record-keeping laws.

Kline, as the then Johnson County District Attorney, filed 107 charges, including 23 felonies, against the abortion business for allegedly violating state law.

However, news surfaced last month when AP reported that the Kansas health department in 2005 destroyed the state late-term abortion reports at the heart of the felony charges against Planned Parenthood. The pre-trial hearing for felony “false-writing” charges had been scheduled for Monday Oct. 24, Since the original reports have now been discovered as destroyed, the Johnson County District attorney’s office had asked for a delay so they could engage other witnesses to verify the authenticity of copies of the state reports.

The delayed shifted the hearing to today and, during the hearing, Judge Stephan Tatum dismissed some of the charges after giving prosecutors until today to see if they could find evidence to authenticate the records.

Planned Parenthood was also charged with multiple misdemeanor counts of failing to test the viability of unborn children before doing late-term abortions, which are banned after viability in Kansas. Those charges remain and motions on them will be heard on February 22. In total, the judge dropped 49 charges against Planned Parenthood, including 23 felonies, while 58 misdemeanor charges move forward.

“Kline had obtained those records from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment when he investigated Planned Parenthood during his tenure as Kansas attorney general,” AP indicated. “Planned Parenthood later provided copies of the documents, but Kline contended that they did not match the ones that he got from the state for abortions performed in 2003. The records deal with reports that Planned Parenthood must file for each abortion. Planned Parenthood keeps one copy in the patient’s file and sends another to state health officials.”

“Prosecutors contended that Planned Parenthood had not kept copies of the records for five years, as required by law, and committed a felony by recreating them when they were requested. Prosecutors wanted to prove the records obtained by Kline were the same as those that had been filed with the state and different from the alleged copies Planned Parenthood later provided,” AP added.

Kline has said state officials in the Sebelius administration intentionally destroyed the records they believed would hurt the Planned Parenthood abortion business. But, at today’s hearing, Pedro Irigonegaray, an attorney for Planned Parenthood, asked Judge Tatum to dismiss the charges.

The state reports are verifications that abortionists send to KDHE for statistical purposes, and are annually tabulated and published. Copies of those reports are required to be kept in the patient medical files. Of crucial importance is that these reports fail to provide valid medical reasons that banned post-viability abortions were performed. They are evidence of illegal abortion.

KFL Executive Director, Mary Kay Culp, said, “Only guilty people destroy evidence; not even we anticipated Sebelius and her administration could stoop this low to protect abortion industry criminality, but this proves they did. Sebelius wanted to insure that evidence of illegal abortions was removed before Kline could use it to convict her abortion industry campaign supporters. We truly can’t find words to adequately convey how outrageous this is. We are especially incredulous given that Sebelius’ Health department testified about these reports in Johnson County court in 2008 without once mentioning that the reports had been destroyed! It’s all so unbelievable, and yet, given the players, so very believable indeed!”

Meanwhile, open records received by Operation Rescue from the Kansas Department of Health and Environment raise more questions than they answer about the recent revelation that documents containing critical evidence against Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri were shredded under the Sebelius Administration.

Operation Rescue asked the agency for a broad range of documents and communications between KDHE and Planned Parenthood and/or the office of former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, who now serves as President Obama’s Secretary of Health and Human Services.